Isla's Days: The Norfolk Broads

Last week we went to Essex and visited my mum and dad and brother. Isla loved playing in the garden and especially doing some pond dipping with mum:

There was a beautiful borage field behind the house, which had been visible on t.v. during the tour de France coverage.

Ahh shark attack! at soft play in Essex.

We drove to Wroxham in Norfolk and boarded our vessel, Fair Sovereign I. Evie immediately became Admiral of the vessel from her seat of authority on the deck:

We ate dinner on the river Bure and then went on to Hoveton Little Broad for the night, where we mud weighted. Isla had a companion called Fair Bear for the week.

It was lovely watching the sun go down in the tranquil setting and then getting up in the morning to feed the geese and have breakfast on deck.

Andrew pulling up our mud weight anchor the next morning:

We went on down the river through Horning and found ourselves one of the first boats on the river as we were up so early.

We moored at Cockshoot Broad after some clever manoeuvring of the boat by Capt. Andrew and some expert tying up by myself!

We set off again with me multitasking (wearing a sleeping Evie and steering the boat) and then swapped around a bit.

We stopped for a walk and lunch at Ranworth where Evie enjoyed some crawling on the grass.

We had to negotiate a very low bridge (height of about 8'6" when our boat was 8'2" with our table collapsed) but emerged the other side on the picturesque river Ant with many windmills and sailing boats.

We moored up for the night at How Hill nature reserve, where Andrew and Isla got chased by an angry swan:

A cormorant and black headed gull on windmill sails:

We stopped at St Benet's abbey and mill ruins the next day. I was hoping to see the elusive swallowtail butterfly but was out of luck with that! We did see many dragonflies though.

Everyone on the other boats was very friendly, waving at us the whole time. Isla felt like a film star.

A cute stripey grebe with an adult grebe:

We stopped at a busier mooring for the next night, with loads of geese for feeding and people fishing from their boats. Overnight, Evie had gained two new teeth, her front top two.

We had a brilliant time at Ranworth Broad nature reserve the next day. They had a great children's area with giant bittern jigsaws and skulls of deer and birds to look at.

Isla found an amber snail. These can get parasitised giving them bright flashing green eyes so that they are easier to spot by foraging birds, although none of the ones we saw had the parasite.

Lunch at the Maltsters Arms! Spot the giant centipede......!

Some more crawling practice and running about:

Ranworth broad nature reserve from the water:

We moored up at Wroxham broad that evening and were the only boat there. We fed a swan family who later came and pecked at our boat in the early hours of the morning along with loads of geese.

The next morning, we dropped off our boat, said bye to Fair Bear and headed to a pub for breakfast. After that we went to BeWilderwood, a huge adventure park based on a series of fantasy children's books about boggles, twiggles and crocklebogs. It was a fun place to be and Isla enjoyed the swings, zip wire and den building as well as a high bridge adventure.